.260 Rem Shooters- How deep did you throat your barrels?

Hey there,

First time poster, long time lurker here. I am picking up an old 110E in .243 from the FFL later this week with the intention of fitting it with a McGowan stainless 26" 260R barrel from gunshack. The rifle will then receive a Boyds Varmint stock and some 6-24x glass on a 20 MOA mount.

In order to take advantage of the long action and 130+ grain VLD projectiles, I am planning on having the barrel throated deeper to keep a decent jump to the lands without having to cram the missile too far into the case, reducing powder space. There is a guy who does good work locally that quoted me $60/hr @ 1-2 hours to do the custom throat.

My question is:

Has anyone else done this and how far did you have to go into the barrel to end up with a .02*" jump to the lands with these longer bullets? I am particularly interested in launching the 143gr Hornady ELD-X bullets.

Please don't tell me to get a Creedmore, I've read enough of that argument over and over again everytime someone mentions the .260 R on this site.....


Thanks for your input!

I wouldn't get a creedmoor in a long action either but if it was a short action yes I would. Best thing to do is get a 260 case and one of the eld bullets to measure. Load up a dummy round and give it along with the barrel to your smith. He should know what to do from there.

Ps I had a 260 ai in a short action and it was very limited in aol trying to shoot the long bullets.

you need to choose a bullet first or several bullets and make up some dummy rounds because every bullet is going to be a little different...if you plan on shooting more than 1 bullet then youll need to find a happy medium between them...if your going to shoot the 130g bullets you should plan on shooting them at 3000+FPS or youll be better off sticking to the 140g class.
ive shot out several 260 barrels and everyone of them would shoot 142g SMKs and the 140g berger hybrids.

I'm having a similar dilemma.... I plan on shooting the 140+ bullets also. Particularly interested in the new ELD-X also... I'm going with a Criterion barrel and will have it chambered in 260 Rem Match. (.160 of free bore) as apposed to the standard chambering in 260 Rem(.118 of free bore).
I'm running my build on the 111 action though if that makes any difference to you.
You and I are even putting the same stock on our rifles....

Good luck and good shooting,

My CBI 260 match barrel has a .298 neck and .160 freebore.. Using the 142 SMK and Lapua brass my OAL was 2.925" (.030 jump). It has been a great shooting barrel at 1/2 moa consistently. I've been in the market for a new 260 barrel to put back on this rifle and as I've called around to different companies, it seems everybody's reamer has a short freebore. JGS has one with a .129 freebore and SPR reamer is even shorter than that in order to feed AI mags. I would want at least a .160 freebore and more than likely a little more. I'm speaking of 140 class bullets only, I never tried any 130's..

Thanks for the replies gentlemen. I'm going to be buying a X-Caliber barrel from a well known seller on this site's classifieds on Friday when the paycheck clears. I think I'm gonna go ahead and mount it in the action and run some rounds down the pipe to check general accuracy then pull it when I'm ready to make the jump to the long bullets and have some experience loading/resizing various .308 based brass to .260R.

It seems that the 20 MOA mount I was planning on has a hard time at shooting less than 300 yds with most scopes. Does anyone here run a 10 MOA Mount on their guns?

What scope will you be using?

6-24x50. Brand and 1"/30mm will be determined by Xmas bonus size but I'm leaning towards swfa or vortex. I would like to start shooting 1000yd in Missoula next year. I have very little practical experience at such ranges

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Originally Posted by Mountain Man

6-24x50. Brand and 1"/30mm will be determined by Xmas bonus size but I'm leaning towards swfa or vortex. I would like to start shooting 1000yd in Missoula next year. I have very little practical experience at such ranges

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Cool. I'm not far. Down in idaho falls. I just switched a scope from my 6.5 x 47 with a 20 moa rail to a flat rail on my new creedmoor. I only had to adjust it 3 mil to hit dead at 100 hundred yards.

Vortex has 65 moa of travel so it shouldn't be a problem. Mine is a primary arms in mils and mildot and it has plenty of adjustment. 20 moa base really isn't necessary it just puts your scope closer to its center adjustment point at the long ranges. Why is this good? It's my understanding that it is good practice to not over adjust your scope as it puts stress on the internal mechanisms. All in all I really don't think it's going to be a big deal which base you get, 20 moa, 10 moa, 0 moa if you have a scope with 65 moa adjustment. You're still a ways from maxing the adjustment out at 1000 yds or down to 100. Maybe someone with more knowledge will chime in.

Also back to free bore and throat depth... pacific tool and gauge makes a throat ing tool that you can use to cut out more of your throat. I think it's $150. It comes as a kit that you can use without taking your rifle apart. I'm thinking about buying it for this savage creedmoor I just bought that comes with a shorter throat barrel from the factory.

How do you like the primary arms scope? A lot of guys were raving about them on Grendel site. My current hunting rig is a 20" AR throwing 69gr 223s. It's got a Mueller 4-16x that is awesome but it has 1/8 MOA adjustments and mildot reticle which makes longer distance doping a little more complicated converting from MOA to mil.

Is your primary arms scope one of the FFP models?

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I run a 260 with a 26" Criterion barrel. Topped with a 20 MOA Nightforce Base/Leupold Mark 4 Rings/Sightron SIII 8-32X56 LRMOA. Rifle is zeroed at 100. I have 62 MOA of elevation up with this combo. My 100 yard zero is obviously near the bottom of the scope internals. I've never had a problem with this setup and have used it on this rifle for 3 years and the same rifle in 308 for several years prior to that. I've shot inside 100 yards out to 1,792 yards (had to hold over with reticle for this after maxing out the scope). If you're looking to get to 1000 yards then get a 30mm tube. Remember if the scope has a total of 65 MOA travel etc that's only, playing it safe, about 30 MOA of elevation with a 0 MOA base. If you ever want to go further than get something like the Sightron 6-24 or something similar that has 100 MOA of total travel, matched with a 20 MOA base and you'll never have an issue. Don't bother looking at 1" tubed scopes for long range shooting.

I'd load the X-Caliber barrel with the longer bullets you want and roll with that before I'd hand ream your chamber out. The hornadys usually like about .020" jump. I'm running .010" off with 142 SMK. My bullets were still stable over a mile with the factory CBI reamer.

Just my $.02

You can't go wrong with the primary arms 4-14 ffp that I have. I actually got it off Amazon discounted to $190 cause it was an open box. There is absolutely nothing to complain about with this scope. I bought it as a temp to get shooting while I saved up for a burris xtr or night force but after getting it and using it for awhile I have lost motivation to dump $1500+ into a scope now. I'm convinced if you put this scope at $599 and stamped made anywhere but China on it, all the scope snobs would rave it as the great entry level scope it is.

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Originally Posted by hafejd30

I run a 260 with a 26" Criterion barrel. Topped with a 20 MOA Nightforce Base/Leupold Mark 4 Rings/Sightron SIII 8-32X56 LRMOA. Rifle is zeroed at 100. I have 62 MOA of elevation up with this combo. My 100 yard zero is obviously near the bottom of the scope internals. I've never had a problem with this setup and have used it on this rifle for 3 years and the same rifle in 308 for several years prior to that. I've shot inside 100 yards out to 1,792 yards (had to hold over with reticle for this after maxing out the scope). If you're looking to get to 1000 yards then get a 30mm tube. Remember if the scope has a total of 65 MOA travel etc that's only, playing it safe, about 30 MOA of elevation with a 0 MOA base. If you ever want to go further than get something like the Sightron 6-24 or something similar that has 100 MOA of total travel, matched with a 20 MOA base and you'll never have an issue. Don't bother looking at 1" tubed scopes for long range shooting.

I'd load the X-Caliber barrel with the longer bullets you want and roll with that before I'd hand ream your chamber out. The hornadys usually like about .020" jump. I'm running .010" off with 142 SMK. My bullets were still stable over a mile with the factory CBI reamer.

Just my $.02

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Do you happen too know the free bore depth of the CBI Reamer?

Check out 4D Reamer Rental in Kalispell...they rent cheap or will do the work for you. Hard to beat the 260 AI.

The CBI reamer has 2 options... 260 Rem (.118 free bore) 260 Rem Match (.160 free bore).

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Originally Posted by Mountain Man

Do you happen too know the free bore depth of the CBI Reamer?

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Mine is .160. The match version

hafejd30, do you have the 28" bull? If so, where did your powder charge end up at? H4350?

26" varmint taper. 42.5 gr H4350/Lapua brass/CCI BR2/142 SMK.010" off/2835 fps without suppressor

1-2 hours is a bit long to throat a barrel. On a Savage, you could pull the barrel and in 15 minutes it is done.

Barrel just showed up. Man is it pretty and smooth! Surprise delivery from USPS on Sunday?

Thanks Rosco!

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Your welcome!!